InfoWorld US reports that Dell will continue to sell and support Windows XP to consumers beyond the June 30 date that Microsoft reaffirmed as final sales date for Windows XP Professional. Dell will use a licensing option which Microsoft calls a "downgrade" license that allow buying a Vista Business or Vista Ultimate license and still provide Windows XP. Dell will preinstall XP Professional as a "downgrade" on a variety of desktop PCs and laptops, that include some Dell Latitude, OptiPlex, and Dell Precision systems as well as some Vostro and Dell XPS gaming systems where the downgrade will come for a small fee. The computers available with the XP option will include the Windows Vista installation DVD in the box so users can later install Vista over XP under the same license if they wish. Dell said it will utilize and support this program as long as Microsoft supports it.

Personally, I love XP. I think it has matured into a very stable OS, but has had its growing pains just like Vista is having now.

At this point, I am actually glad to see Microsoft stopping sales of XP and kind of disappointed that larger companies like Dell are still selling computers with XP on them. The only way Vista will mature is for people to use it. It isn't nearly as bad as it was when it was released, and right now I would have no problem running it on all my machines if I could afford licenses for all of them.